Play On In The Playoffs

The Playoffs are “The Second Season.” The Playoffs are a competition played after the regular season is over by the top competitors to determine the league champion. Depending on the league, the playoffs are a series of games, or a tournament, and use a single-elimination system. Win in the playoffs and you play-on; snooze and you lose.

Jim Mora’s comical postgame diatribe about the Indianapolis Colts making the Playoffs is now classic. He was incredulous that some reporter asked if his team could make the playoffs. Despite both his successes and failures, Mora will always be remembered for a single press conference. His priceless rant after the Colts’ Nov. 25, 2001 loss to the San Francisco 49’ers stemmed from a single dumb question by a reporter and is the moment in his career that will live on forever.

There is a second season. However, some are incredulous about the possibility of “life after death.” Many don’t believe that there is an “afterlife” so they live their lives loosely and limply; they go through their lives casually and carelessly, and don’t plan for nor work toward what comes after the regular season of life. Many have this as their motto: “What advantage is it if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32).

The playoffs are the hope and dream of every team. All teams live and breath for this second season. All teams know that there is more to the season than “just playing the game.” Clearly, every game is not just a game. Likewise, spiritually speaking, there is more to life than this life; this life we now live can be likened to the “regular season.” The “real life” comes after this life. We are living to live again. Just like in the NFL, only the strong survive; only those who plan for the second season will play in the second season.

In the “game of life” there is a second season. The writer of Hebrews said “as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). And Job may have said it best: “If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come” (Job 14:14, KJV).

The Playoffs. They are the march to the crown. Every team and every player wants to make the playoffs. Likewise, we should strive for the goal of living eternally after the regular season of this life is over. There will be “spiritual playoffs” where we will continue to play on. So think about your own mortality. Think about how everyone’s regular season will end someday.

Plan for the playoffs. We all should plan to keep playing after the regular season of life is over. So think about the spiritual playoffs. Plan for them. Yearn for them. Give your all for the second season. There is time, and then there will be eternity. We all will live, or die, forever.